The foreign ministers of Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) traveled to Israel on Mar. 28 to discuss “peace and stability in the region” in a rare meeting with their Israeli and American counterparts. The Negev Summit, as the gathering was officially dubbed, was preceded by a Mar. 22 tripartite meeting between the leaders of Egypt, Israel and the UAE that also primarily dealt with regional security. In the days between these Arab-Israeli meetings, King Abdullah of Jordan hosted high-ranking officials from Egypt, Iraq and the UAE on Mar. 26.

What the three important gatherings have in common is a focus on the regional activities of Iran and its non-state allies. In particular, the Negev Summit has been seen as an attempt to create a regional security architecture to counter Tehran.